Our goal is to provide relevant information for AEC and facilities management professionals, including posts on building information modeling, facilities management, Autodesk building solutions such as AutoCAD Architecture and Revit, and ARCHIBUS software.

Revit

02/23/2015

There are normally several key families that need coordination via Copy/Monitor from discipline to discipline in a Revit project. This post will focus on plumbing fixtures like toilets. The architect is responsible for the overall layout of the bathrooms. Namely they need to design within accessible design standards. The engineer isn't as worried about placement as they are worried about the sizes of pipe connections, pressures, slopes, and so on. The tool to help the engineer navigate this situation is Copy/Monitor with Type Mapping. This allows the engineer to use their own fixture family with a full complement of connectors and rich parameter data while monitoring the placement of the toilet which is being driven by the architect. The engineer can set the tool up to provide an alert if the toilet is moved by the architect.

If Copy/Monitor is being used for plumbing fixtures for instance, be sure the origin lands at the same place family to family. MEP designers generally like to set the origin of their families in the corner so that the mouse pointer is directly over the corner of the object while deciding on placement. Typically, architects like the origin of an object to be directly in the middle. This is for practical purposes as well. If there are several different sizes, the family will grow or shrink from a central point. The differences aside, if the origins are different, the Copy/Monitor will appear to not have worked and cause confusion.

The way to discover the origin of a family is as follows. Select an instance of the family (either one) and click “Edit Family”. Within the family, there are normally at least two Reference Planes. In the properties, at the bottom, there is a check box for “Defines Origin”. There can only be one Reference Plane in each major direction to be able to define the origin.

In detail:Check each Reference Plane:

Defines Origin is checked here,

Defines Origin is checked here also,

Means that the Family’s origin should be right in the middle on the fixture side of the wall. Now visit the other fixture to check the Reference Planes and which define the origin. Once they are matched up, the families should land right in place when they are Copy/Monitored.

It will also cause fewer problems for the Copy/Monitor process if both families can have the same kind of hosting. Face based hosting is the most versatile in my opinion.

02/04/2015

As a designer doing visualization work in Revit, how do you keep all site elements and entourage from being seen by other disciplines using the Architectural Model? If I create people and plants and coffee mugs in the project, the other designers working on construction documents probably aren’t going to be too happy that they are showing up and need to be hidden. The other disciplines that are using your model as a background probably won’t be too thrilled about the “extras” that you have dropped into the project for visualization purposes.

The solution is within the worksets, but maybe you hadn’t stumbled upon it yet.

I will go ahead and create all the necessary elements for a rendering, cars, RPCs, mock light sources, etc. Then go to the worksets dialogue and create an “Entourage” workset. Be sure to uncheck the box that says “Visible in all Views”. This ensures that each new view that is created in the project, that workset will be off. Place all of the objects that are part of the visualization effort on the created workset.

Now all of the objects I created for visualization can be turned off with one check box. The Visibility Graphic Override Dialogue for each view should look like this.

By unchecking “Visible in all views” in the workset setup, we changed how the objects on this workset are displayed globally.

Now what about the linked model?

The same can be true in the MEP model. If I create the same workset, the same way (the name has to match exactly) the entourage elements will be globally off on the MEP side too. Enjoy headache free visualization!

02/03/2015

Learn how to use and customize the user interface to increase productivity and simplify your workflow.

These Tips and Tricks include how to customize the Quick Access Toolbar, how to change the look of the Ribbon, moving Palettes, changing double-click actions and Tab Switching Behavior. This also covers making Keyboard Shortcuts and more.

01/16/2015

Copy/Monitor is a useful tool for the MEP disciplines, particularly for lights, sinks, etc. Most would argue that there is no benefit for the MEP disciplines to copy/monitor the Architect’s walls. This is normally correct. However, this post will give a quick 1,2,3 that can save you a bit of time.

Later on in the project design, the time will come to make some Interior Elevations in MEP. Let’s use the Interior Elevations of the Electrical Room for example. In most workflows, the MEP model will not contain any walls. Those walls belong to the architectural discipline. The tool to create Interior Elevations does a decent job most of the time. The computer shoots two feelers out for room bounding objects and the interior elevation stops there.

The problem, in MEP, if the walls aren’t there, the view isn’t constrained in any way. The software makes a guess at where you would like the view to stop. Sometimes, Revit has a tough time guessing where you want the extents of the view to end. You will most likely end up with something that looks like this like this.

The tip is as follows. Copy/Monitor the two walls that you need to constrain the Elevation. In this case that is the top and bottom ones. Doing this will constrain the extents of the view. Making a few walls that you will delete later is well worth not dealing with the cropping battle.

Then create the Interior Elevation after the walls are in place.

You can take it a step further and Copy/Monitor the ceiling as well. This will help constrain the view vertically. After the Interior Elevations have been created, delete the walls (and ceiling) that were Copy/Monitored, they have served their purpose. Enjoy!

01/15/2015

Autodesk has been working hard creating tools to help architects and engineers make intelligent decisions for more sustainable design. One of these great tools is the Lighting Analysis Add-In from Autodesk.

Using the Lighting Analysis Add-In from Autodesk, lighting calculations can be performed in the Revit model. The results consist of a graphical representation of your results, pass/fail notifications, and a deliverable schedule for your LEED submission.

Place your cursor over the Lighting Analysis Ribbon and hit F1. The help menus go into great detail how to use the Add-In. Here are some instructions to get you started.

The first time you run the Lighting Analysis tool you will get a popup and links to the help menu to explain in better detail how to use the tools. Review the dialogue box to better understand best practices when using these tools; click continue. Do NOT check the box that says “Don’t show this message next time” because it is good to review each time.

Choose which version of the analysis to run, LEED v4 EQc7 opt2 or LEED 2009 IEQc8.1, and which level, or all levels, to run it against. The Illuminance Threshold settings will change depending on which analysis type you select. You will need to be logged into your A360 account since the analysis runs on the cloud and you may need to use cloud credits. Tip: If credits are required, try doing one floor at a time. It may require 0 credits.

You will get a notification in Revit when the analysis is completed. The Lighting Analysis cannot be run again until the first one initiated finishes.

Click generate results on the ribbon to see how the model performed.

In the properties of the view, you can choose view how to display the results. Click generate results while the view you want to display is the active window.

Click on the style to choose another style or change the settings of the current style. Changing the settings will affect other views using the same style.

The view will display results similar to this throughout the entire view.

Take a look at your schedules list in the project browser. Notice there are two new schedules, Lighting Analysis Floor Schedule & Lighting Analysis Room Schedule. These were created automatically. The Add-In also created new shared parameters and filled them in to generate this schedule.

You will want to check or uncheck the appropriate boxes for “Include in Daylighting” and “LEED Regularly Occupied”. This allows it to appropriately include or exclude the correct rooms when determining Pass/Fail percentages. Click generate results to get an updated Results Summary, you do not need to re-run the analysis.

Export your schedules from Revit for use with your LEED submission.

If/when the LEED Credit Manager is released from Autodesk Labs, it will expand on the Lighting Analysis tool so it would be advisable to get familiar with it. Additionally, it would be good practice to make sure the quality of your model and necessary skills will be up to par and ready to use all of the future features of Revit for LEED. More on this after we see the final release from Autodesk Labs.

12/22/2014

When exploding to convert details from AutoCAD to Revit, what have you heard people say? Wait! Don’t!

Whoever said this knows about the four demons. When you explode AutoCAD files in Revit Projects, several things happen.

#1 The text from AutoCAD is normally converted to new Revit Text Styles but the name and scale probably won’t be right, especially if the text in the AutoCAD file wasn’t annotative.

#2 All AutoCAD layers become a new Line Style. This doesn’t sound so bad but those Line Styles will be the same color as the layers if you preserved the colors when you imported. Additionally, those line styles will most likely carry a weight of 1. These will need to be tracked down and removed.

#3 All Line Patterns from AutoCAD come over into Revit. Revit already has its own Line Patterns, utilizing a different system, so these don’t compute. These will need to be tracked down and removed.

#4 All visible hatches from the exploded AutoCAD file become new Revit Filled Region types. Again, this doesn’t mean quite as much as the others but these will need to be tracked down and removed.

It might not seem like a problem but it normally does become a problem. Revit projects are just like other projects in that one of the main goals is for the entire drawing set to have a consistent look, like one person drafted the entire project. The more illegitimate Text Styles, Line Styles, Line Patterns, and Filled Regions you have to choose from, the better the chances that user 1 is utilizing a certain combination of those four categories and user 2 is utilizing a different combination. This will easily and quickly conquer the effort to create a cohesive, concise set of Construction Documents.

Practical Advice: Convert AutoCAD details etc. in a separate file. Then utilize “Insert Views from File” to bring that converted detail to the working project. This way, all of the demons stay behind in a file that you will eventually delete. One extra step saves the model manager time and headaches.

As a side note, if you want to explode a line segment that is very small, Revit might not convert it. This dimension is somewhere under 1/32”. This is normally rasterized objects or splines and curves.

12/19/2014

In this Adaptive Family, reporting parameters will be used and formulas will be added to the Cricket Adaptive Family.

Reporting parameters are a parameter type in which the value is driven by a dimension in the family. Reporting parameters extract a value from a geometric condition and use it to report the data to a formula or as a schedulable parameter.

12/16/2014

In this Adaptive Family, the adaptive points’ orientation will be changed and parameters will be added to change the offset distance.

Orientation affects the adaptive component family when placed on another component or in a project environment. With the adaptive points selected, go to the Properties Palette and under the Adaptive Component section, specify the Orientation. For this family, the adaptive point Orientation will be changed to “Vertical on Placement”.

This example contains a roof and a chimney. A cricket or saddle is needed to divert water on the roof around the high side of the chimney.

12/08/2014

Recently, I attended an excellent demonstration of the new Autodesk FormIT application at the New York Revit User Group by Tom Vollaro of Autodesk. Although the application is at the beginning of its development, one particular feature of FormIT appears to plug a hole in the existing workflow between the Revit conceptual massing environment and the Revit project environment.

In particular, there was simply no way to transfer any levels created in the conceptual massing environment into the project environment. When you loaded the conceptual mass into the project, you had to recreate the levels in the project environment from scratch. If there had been considerable work put into creating multiple levels and carefully establishing their location, this lapse in the workflow was frustrating.

The Autodesk FormIT application takes care of this workflow problem as well as providing an excellent design sketching environment that will compete favorably against the Revit conceptual massing environment. Whether you use web based or IPad based FormIT, you get a very easy to use sketching tool that connects very well with Revit. It’s still early but the development plans seem to be strong and it is usable today as is.

Here is the workflow from FormIT to Revit:

1. Either before or after sketching your building, click the Levels tab in FormIT. There are 5 default levels and you can either adjust their heights or delete them to start from scratch.

2. If you delete the default levels you should leave one level to work from.

3. Next, you can use the “Add Multiple Levels” button and specify how many levels you want to create as well as their spacing.

4. Now the new levels appear, but how do we make them visible in the model?

5. The next step is to activate the Properties tab so we can control the visibility of the levels. We can tab over the object to highlight the whole object and select it to see the object properties. Next, pick the “Area by Level” button. This will allow us to expand the levels to see the level list. Finally, we can choose “Check All” or choose just the levels we want to see in the model. When the model is converted into a Revit file, all levels will appear including any levels that are above or below the model. The FormIT levels do not have to intersect the modeled object to be converted into Revit.

6. Now the model can be saved to A360. This central cloud location manages model sharing and conversion to Revit.

7. Once the model is saved to A360, a Revit rvt file will automatically be generated. The rvt file can be downloaded and opened in Revit.

8. The result is a fully functioning Revit project with the model and all of the Levels present. The conversion process on A360 will include all levels even if they do not intersect the model itself.

The workflow from FormIT to Revit is a promising alternative to the conceptual massing environment. In addition to the level tools, there are a host of excellent sketching and materials features in FormIT that will ultimately result in a very strong workflow for building design.</p>